John Jardine Paterson

Sir John Valentine Jardine Paterson (14 February 1920 – 12 March 2000) was a Scottish businessman whose career was mostly in India.

He was Chairman of the family firm, Jardine Henderson of Calcutta (closely related to Jardines of Hong Kong), from 1963 to 1967, Chairman of the Indian Jute Mills Association in 1963 and President of the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1966. He joined McLeod Russel PLC in 1967 and was company chairman from 1979 to 1983.

Life Born at Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, in 1920, Jardine Paterson was one of the four sons of Robert Jardine Paterson JP (1878–1942) of Balgray, near Lockerbie, a former Coldstream Guards officer, by his marriage to Constance Margaret Steel. The other sons were David (born 1914), Robert Noël (1916–1995), and Arthur James (born 1918). He was educated at Eton and Jesus College, Cambridge.

Jardine Paterson was born into the family which had founded the Jardine Matheson company, although his branch of the family controlled Jardine, Skinner and Company of Calcutta, the Indian division of Jardines, rather than its main business based in Hong Kong. Jardine Skinner & Co. had been established in 1844 by David Jardine of Balgray and had become a major force in the tea, jute and rubber trades. and served with distinction. On 23 April 1942, during the war, his father died at the age of 64.

After leaving the Army, he joined the family firm, by now renamed Jardine Henderson Ltd, of Calcutta, and was a director of the company from 1952 to 1967, chairman from 1963 to 1967. He was knighted in 1967.

He was a member of the Oriental Club and at the time of his death was living in retirement at Norton Bavant Manor in Wiltshire, which had been bought in 1947 by his father-in-law. He died on 12 March 2000.